Gardening Tips

Sep

Goals for greenhouse gardening

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The goals of greenhouse gardening are multiple, but not difficult to understand once you know that greenhouses function primarily by keeping the cold out and the warmth in. They don’t need to be extremely expensive in order to do this, they don’t need to be hard to set up, and they can be varied in size as space allows.

In many locations, a good garden would be difficult to have without a greenhouse. This is particularly true in colder areas, where the growing season may be only three months or even less. For vegetable seeds to germinate, the soil must usually be warm. In areas with short growing seasons, this means delaying the planting until the ground warms up.

In turn, this generally means that crops needing a longer growing season have difficulty maturing if planted directly into the ground. One of the first goals of the greenhouse is to extend the growing season. If even an additional month of growing time is given, it can have a huge impact on the types of vegetables grown.

Most of the time, planting the seeds in the greenhouse early does this. By the time the outside ground has warmed up enough to safely plant, the small plants in the greenhouse are already well established and can be put in the ground when they are already growing good.

To see an example of how well this works, we can look at a small community located in the Cascades of Southern Oregon. The soil is fertile, however the area has a short growing season, with large amounts of snow for nearly 9 months of the year. Yet, by using small greenhouses, several people have successful gardens every year. They grow tomatoes, peppers, corn, beans, and other vegetables requiring longer periods for the crops to grow. These plants can be grown by seed by starting them in the greenhouse, giving them the additional time they need to grow.

Even if there is a late snowfall, the greenhouse can protect the young plants. This is a second goal of greenhouses. A late frost or snowfall can devastate a garden, freezing the plants. The greenhouse keeps the warmth in, allowing the plants to develop, and at the same time, it keeps the snow and ice off the growing vegetables.

A third goal of greenhouse gardening is to maintain a nearly constant humidity and temperature range. This produces optimal growing conditions. Venting or giving additional heat, as needed, does this. Keeping the temperatures and humidity constant lets the plants grow well even if outside weather conditions deteriorate.

This part works so well that many people do their entire gardening in a greenhouse. The plants are never put in the ground outside of the greenhouse. With some plants that require a great deal of room, the greenhouse won’t help a great deal for this sort of gardening. However, more compact plants like tomatoes and peppers, can be grown in this way.

The fourth goal of a greenhouse is to make it easier to care for the plants. The gardener can more closely control the amount of water each plant gets, as well as controlling insect infestations more easily.

The fifth goal is to control space. Most greenhouses have some form of shelves, so plants can literally be grown one above the other. This can be even better than raised bed gardening when it comes to saving space.

The ultimate goal of greenhouse gardening is to have a larger and earlier crop. All of the above combines to make this possible. The successes that occur every year by greenhouse gardening furnish proof that the method does work, repeatedly. If you like gardening, is it not worth giving it a try?

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